RNA – Speaking at the second academic seminar on the culture of jihad at Qom’s Dar al-Shifa Seminary, Ayatollah Ali-Reza Arafi, the head of the Islamic Seminaries of Iran, said that the commemoration of Holy Defense Week, which marks the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, offers an important message that the Islamic Seminary of Qom is vigilant and alert and also stands firm on the divine covenant.
The member of the Supreme Council of Islamic Seminaries said the concept of jihad has a place in the heart of our teachings and dealing with it is part of the mission of the Islamic Seminary and added: “The system of defense and jihad is the guarantor of the survival of the overall system of Islam and in the modern era, the concept of jihad and martyrdom plays a key role in the Islamic Revolution.”
He explained that all the meanings of jihad have a rational framework and that jihad is very progressive concept. “We must certainly take a comparative look at Islam and other legal systems, religions and sects and examine the perspective of Islam and other civilizations,” he said.
Ayatollah Arafi stressed that we are believers in the concept of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Jurisprudent) and reject the ideology of the leader of Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and those who want to be commanders of an Islamic state without an understanding of jurisprudence.
The dean of al-Mustafa International University added that we must examine the records of the enemies’ wars throughout the world while the ears of the people are opened to the human rights abuses.
He added that the claimants of human rights have created a lot of problems for the world and that weapons of mass destruction and violations of the rights of Muslims through various methods derive from the heart of Western civilization.
“In regard to the United States alone, there are more than 100 cases of occupation, war and aggression,” he said.
Ayatollah Arafi referred to the current situation of the Muslim world, saying that in opposition to the concepts of jihad and resistance, there is a Western and patronizing intellectual theory that says that jihad must be interpreted in such a way that resistance does not exist.
“In this approach, with the slogan of renouncing violence, nothing remains of resistance and this results in passivity against the enemies and their aggression,” he said.
He stressed that the Takfiri and Wahhabi phenomena are great dangers to jihad and martyrdom because they have presented an incorrect model which is opposed to the beautiful and attractive model that is the Sacred Defence and they are supported by the West and their base is in Saudi Arabia.
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